New Irish Management Team- Challenges

Greetings, been a while but let's pre-empt David Kelly in the Indo with a "challenges" thread..

Way I see it we have the folowing issues:

goals - no clear Shay successor. Who do they go for? O'Neill may well know Westwood- did he play him at Sunderland?

Defence - there's a back 4 there but will Mo'N pick it? Succession planning isn't really part of senior international play so we can possible forsee Josh been kept on. Is there a future for Richie Dunne?

Midfield - Let's have a good look at this over the friendlies - Any views on who is most likely? Will Whelan be given a chance?

Up front - robbie to impact sub status? Long ot lead the line?

in the hole - does this spot exist - probably.. will Andy Reid get a chance or will Hoolalan keep the spot warm until Brady or someone else grows into it?

WOrk to be done all over the pitch...

additional point - what does success look like here? Personally I think they have to win back the fans - what that looks like I don't know but perhaps as a minimum it's showing the fans a motivated, team playing in some fashion that the players enjoy...

In goal I think we actually have plenty of options. Westwood, Forde, and Randoph are all playing regularly at a decent level, and Shay remains a viable option if we're ever stuck.

For me the real challenge is to build a team around our best players. Coleman, Wilson, Gibson, McCarthy, McGeady & Brady will hopefully be the core of the team in the next number of years, so it will be a case of of working out a system to accommodate them and getting a couple more reliable options to make us a solid unit. Obviously he will have to do without Gibson for a while.

Glenn Whelan got a lot of stick when Trap gave him his chance. He was never any more than a journeyman pro, but regardless of what the naysayers would say he was very important to us during the Trap years. The challenge O'Neill will face will be finding guys like that to plug the gaps. The good news is that he has been brilliant at that down through the years.

Success is simple. Qualify for the Euros

Unfortunately I think we are about 3 good players short of being a decent International outfit irrespective of who the management team is. We need a good central midfield player as I don't rate McCarthy and Gibson is no Roy Keane (he's not even a Matt Holland). Jeff Hendrick or Sean Murray may become viable alternatives to both over the course of the campaign but I don't see anyone ready to step into either's shoes at present so we are stuck with what we have. Possibly S Ireland could do a job here for us.

We could also do with a central defender. Mark O'Brien, Shane Duffy and Tommie Hoban are the main young Irish defenders with first team experience at the moment that but I can't see any of these being ready for at least a season or two and with O'Brien's injury record he may even struggle to get back in the Derby team once he regains his fitness. Possibly Ciaran Clark could improve and fill this position for us but I find that he often struggles against decent opposition.

Most worryingly, for the first time in a number of years we don't seem to have any promising young strikers at the moment whereas at one time we were overloaded with prospects in that position (Billy Clarke, Leon Best, Stokes and Long). Where are the goals going to come from now that Robbie is in the twilight of his career?

Against all this negativity I'm hoping that if anyone can get the best out of our limited pool of players it'll be O'Neill. Who knows, maybe a few gems could be unearthed before the end of the Euro qualifying campaign if we can manage to stay in touch until then (and with 3 teams in the qualification hunt there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to).

You dont rate McCarthy at all?

They should do something to spice things up. Maybe go back to those Oaange Tops from that one match in the 90s.

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Originally Posted by youngirish

Unfortunately I think we are about 3 good players short of being a decent International outfit irrespective of who the management team is.

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What is a decent international outfit?

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We need a good central midfield player as I don't rate McCarthy

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My god, I wouldn't like to be a player under your management.

This idea that we have the talent pool of a minnow nation is just plain wrong. We have good players playing at a high level. We may lack the elite players that some other European nations have which can raise them above others and our players aren't as used to playing high-tempo possession football, but the Premier League and international football are full of managers who have got more limited players than ours to play confident, passing-based football. Keane has been banging the drum for years that England's players are as technically-able as any nation, and we should be similarly confident that we're not the worst in the world either.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

What is a decent international outfit?

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A team that regularly qualifies for tournaments and is at least is competitive in them. Sweden, Greece, Switzerland, the Czechs and Croatia all spring to mind. Why, what would you consider to be a decent international outfit? A team that's qualified for one tournament out of the last 6 and got trounced in every game?

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

This idea that we have the talent pool of a minnow nation is just plain wrong. We have good players playing at a high level. We may lack the elite players that some other European nations have which can raise them above others and our players aren't as used to playing high-tempo possession football, but the Premier League and international football are full of managers who have got more limited players than ours to play confident, passing-based football. Keane has been banging the drum for years that England's players are as technically-able as any nation, and we should be similarly confident that we're not the worst in the world either.

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We have one really decent Premiership player at the moment - Coleman. McCarthy and Gibson are two of the poorer players in the Everton team who are hardly one of the best teams in the league anyway. I'd be surprised if they finished any higher than seventh. Other than that we have a few players playing regularly for teams who are likely to be involved in battles towards the bottom end of the table.

As for your other point England are in no way, shape or form anywhere near
as technically able as any nation and if you really believe that to be true I'd suggest you need to go back and watch them playing against one of the true technically gifted European teams over the past few years.

And are Sweden, who you so admire, that technically gifted? I think we're good enough to compete among second seeded European teams.

But anyway, I think Randolph is poor. He consistently fails to impress me.

We have a solid enough keeper in Forde and must hope that Henderson or maybe Lawlor at City up it a few notches. Westwood is on the cusp in my opinion.

Our defenders are OK for now. Coleman is great, Dunne and O'Shea have life left in them for a bit, Clark is on an upward curve, SSL is reliable....

I posted on another thread that it's anyone's guess how the new management will configure the decent defensive midfielders we have and the quite talented attacking payers we have. The number of decent options we have is quite plentiful, the problem being that not many are much more than decent.

But I do think that someone, maybe or maybe not MON, could do something good with our current defenders, our current deeper lying midfielders and then the likes of McGeady, Brady, Reid, Hoolahan, Long, McClean, Keane, Walters, Doyle and Stokes. It's not like there's a paucity if talent, under Trap it was more of a paucity of ambition.

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Originally Posted by youngirish

A team that regularly qualifies for tournaments and is at least is competitive in them. Sweden, Greece, Switzerland, the Czechs and Croatia all spring to mind. Why, what would you consider to be a decent international outfit? A team that's qualified for one tournament out of the last 6 and got trounced in every game?

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So 2/3 of international sides are below decent? I'd say a decent international outfit is one that's usually there or thereabouts in the mix to qualify for elite tournaments.

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We have one really decent Premiership player at the moment - Coleman. McCarthy and Gibson are two of the poorer players in the Everton team who are hardly one of the best teams in the league anyway.

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They're a side who were a goal away from going second in the league on Sunday but I suppose if we're using your definition of decent then anybody outside the top 1 is up against it. And they're hardly two of the poorer players if they've both been virtually ever-present when fit.

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I'd be surprised if they finished any higher than seventh. Other than that we have a few players playing regularly for teams who are likely to be involved in battles towards the bottom end of the table.

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And sides like Sweden, Switzerland, the Czechs - all of their players are challenging for honours in the top leagues?

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As for your other point England are in no way, shape or form anywhere near
as technically able as any nation and if you really believe that to be true I'd suggest you need to go back and watch them playing against one of the true technically gifted European teams over the past few years.

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I've seen England play against the best teams in the world and they usually come up short. I've also see them beat some of those teams, as well as most of the teams ranked below them. Some of which you'd categorise as "decent". I'm not saying Roy was right to say they're as technically-gifted as anyone, but certainly they're up there.

It's easy to bash England. They're a mile off Spain and some others, but they're no mugs.

The reason they rarely make it beyond the last 8 is because they're not as good as the top 8. But they're better than a lot of the others. I think the players are technically good (not brilliant) but they're not conditioned to playing the type of patient, technical TEAM game that even lesser countries are able to pay.

I think they've got good defenders, good forwards but ordinary midfielders.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

So 2/3 of international sides are below decent? I'd say a decent international outfit is one that's usually there or thereabouts in the mix to qualify for elite tournaments.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

They're a side who were a goal away from going second in the league on Sunday but I suppose if we're using your definition of decent then anybody outside the top 1 is up against it. And they're hardly two of the poorer players if they've both been virtually ever-present when fit.

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The season has only started and they are 7th. Let's see where they end up next May before getting carried away. As for Gibson and McCarthy, both won't be virtually ever present when they are fit. Gibson hasn't been fit for any length of time since McCarthy arrived at the club .

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

And sides like Sweden, Switzerland, the Czechs - all of their players are challenging for honours in the top leagues?

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Why would a team I consider being decent have all of their players challenging for honours in the top leagues? This would obviously be the criteria for a top team not a decent team. Sweden have one of the best players in the world lining out for them, Switzerland have a large number of players playing in the Champions League (we have 1) as have the Czechs though the current Czech team is admittedly have a considerably poorer group of players than they have had in recent years.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

I've seen England play against the best teams in the world and they usually come up short. I've also see them beat some of those teams, as well as most of the teams ranked below them. Some of which you'd categorise as "decent". I'm not saying Roy was right to say they're as technically-gifted as anyone, but certainly they're up there.

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When have England beaten a top team in the world in recent years in a competitive game? It's a fallacy to state they are almost as technically gifted as any of the top European or South American teams. They have a few good players but even their most technically gifted players are way of the top European players in a technical sense.

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Originally Posted by youngirish

The season has only started and they are 7th. Let's see where they end up next May before getting carried away. As for Gibson and McCarthy, both won't be virtually ever present when they are fit. Gibson hasn't been fit for any length of time since McCarthy arrived at the club.

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I'm not the one getting carried away.

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Why would a team I consider being decent have all of their players challenging for honours in the top leagues? This would obviously be the criteria for a top team not a decent team. Sweden have one of the best players in the world lining out for them, Switzerland have a large number of players playing in the Champions League (we have 1) as have the Czechs though the current Czech team is admittedly have a considerably poorer group of players than they have had in recent years.

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Well you're saying we're not a decent team because a lot of our players are battling towards the lower end of the table in a top league. I had assumed then that a decent team would need players who were playing at a level above.

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When have England beaten a top team in the world in recent years in a competitive game? It's a fallacy to state they are almost as technically gifted as any of the top European or South American teams. They have a few good players but even their most technically gifted players are way of the top European players in a technical sense.

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You didn't say competitive game. They haven't lost to a top team in a competitive game since 2010. As a top-ranked team they tend to play teams ranked below them so the sample size is small. In friendlies, they've beaten the likes of Spain and Brazil, which is an impressive feat. I never said their players are of the same technical standard as the top European players - not even Roy said that. He said they can mix it with the top nations, which they can bar the top 4 or so.

Who cares about 'Ingerland' FFS?

The main challenge is to create a viable team playing a viable system, which has been lacking for the best part of the last four years.
And to embrace some of the most mediocre talent available in the last 30...

Not as straightforward or easy as it looks.

Ingerland is relevant to the matter because our national team's assistant coach has spoken about the technical ability of that nation's players, the same pool from which we draw many of our own and among whom many other Irish players learn and ply their trade. The technical ability or lack thereof of English players and the way our coaches view them is totally relevant to our team's fortunes over the coming years.

Except that's hardly news. And I meant in a generic way regarding the usual predictable drivel.

ArdeeBhoy, if you tell me one more time that something isn't news I'm going to turn this car around and there'll be no Martin O'Neill-Roy Keane dream team for anybody.

Ok, as long as you admit that's very old news, dating back to long before we were all born...

I also have lots of interesting things to say about archaeology.

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Originally Posted by youngirish

We could also do with a central defender. Mark O'Brien, Shane Duffy and Tommie Hoban are the main young Irish defenders with first team experience at the moment that but I can't see any of these being ready for at least a season or two and with O'Brien's injury record he may even struggle to get back in the Derby team once he regains his fitness. Possibly Ciaran Clark could improve and fill this position for us but I find that he often struggles against decent opposition.

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We could indeed so with options beginning to poke their heads up in this position and the three you mention remain the most likely even if progress has stalled to varying degrees and for various reasons for them all. There is also John Egan who despite the injury was given a year extension at Sunderland in March but he has very little first team experience thus far. Cian Bolger is on loan from Bolton to Colchester at present and while collecting yellows is in the side. Rob Kiernan is similarly getting experience at Southend from Wigan and is generally in the side there. Anthony O'Connor is in the side at Torquay on his loan from Blackburn too and had it extended recently. So while they may yet become lost to the lower leagues, you never know, one or more may become options in this position too in the coming campaign, it can happen. I read with interest that Andros Townsend had as many as nine loan spells away from Spurs, several of which were in lower league settings before his recent breakthrough in club and international terms.

I think Townsend's figures are exaggerated a bit by the short-term nature of their loans, but he is an example of a player at a club who maximise their use of the loan system by getting players out young and to teams at an appropriate level. Aston Villa seem to be adopting a similar model, which hopefully will benefit the likes of Grealish, Burke and Carruthers in the long run.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

I think Townsend's figures are exaggerated a bit by the short-term nature of their loans

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Well nonetheless there were nine loans CD. Regardless of their duration. In fact it could be that some were brief due to not going brilliantly perhaps, (not sure without searching them all) as is sometimes the case in such loans, but he seems to have had it in him in any event as he is now demonstrating. As will some of our lads also in time hopefully, would you not agree ?